


little earthquakes

by natsubaki



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Bittersweet, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, End of the World, Falling In Love, Grief, Happy Ending, Light Angst, Literary References & Allusions, Loss, M/M, Minor Character Death, Post-Apocalypse, Sexual Content, Starting Over, Survival, Travel, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-28 08:29:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16237892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natsubaki/pseuds/natsubaki
Summary: The end of the world had come and gone.In the aftermath, Yuuri wanders the land alone until he encounters a silver-haired stranger. Together, they build a life.





	little earthquakes

**Author's Note:**

> I'd originally started this as a zine submission, but I'm almost glad for the rejection, since this ended up twice the zine's maximum length! XD 
> 
> Many, many thanks to the wonderful [iruutciv](http://iruutciv.tumblr.com), whose gorgeous commissioned illustration is featured here and gives me too many feelings ♡♡♡

The end doesn’t come with a bang, nor heralded by angelic judgment, but with a rumble deep inside the earth. It is as though the planet, sick and sorrowful, simply wishes to tear itself apart. Buildings topple, crumbling into piles of concrete and steel debris; entire cities are leveled, leaving barely a trace of the vibrancies of what once stood there. Continents break apart into islands, the ocean rushing to cradle the gaps. Storms ravish the land with their unyielding brutality, torrents beating the earth and lightning scouring it. Volcanoes burst into fiery spectacles, spewing ash and dust upward to blanket the skies with their angry outbursts. The tides shift. Some fear the moon itself would fall.

There is chaos, and then it is over, and then it is After.

Half of the world’s population perishes during the events of the End. Sixty percent of established areas become uninhabitable. Lack of medical access and resources, along with the destruction of most of the world’s crops and drinkable water reservoirs, lead to half of those remaining succumbing to illness and hunger. Governments, unable to provide for or protect their citizens, collapse. It is a miracle in itself that war does not break out, but perhaps the survivors are so downtrodden that banding together becomes the only viable option.

The period immediately following the Settling sees a furious advance in technology, coalescing the world’s intelligence in a singular desperate struggle to continue the species’s existence. Five years later, seeking a new future, humanity takes to the stars. The ones who stay behind watch as massive ships, their metallic paneling reflecting the bright embers of dusk, sail past the atmosphere, into the beyond, never to return.

And humanity lives on.

The sun continues to rise in the east and set in the west. The world continues to revolve. Children are born and grow, and still more take their final rest within the earth, as is the way of life.

 

*:･ﾟ✶✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

Katsuki Yuuri keeps a worn photo of his family, slightly scorched along the edges, in his breast pocket. He’d once tried to burn it, wanting to forget everything that had been taken during the End, but Victor had smacked it from his hands and stamped out the lingering flames. Yuuri had hated him for it, had lashed out with hurtful words riding upon his tongue, but the angry burns on Victor’s fingers had smothered that hate as quickly as it’d come. He’d tearfully rubbed ointment and bandaged Victor’s hands as Victor had tucked the photo back into his pocket, patting it against Yuuri’s chest.

“Keep it,” he’d said with a somber smile, “Memories are a precious commodity. No point in losing more than you’ve already lost.”

Victor Nikiforov wears a tattered checkered gray scarf, even when it’s sweltering. “It was my _dedushka’s_ ,” Victor tells Yuuri one day, without prompting. “He was a stern man, and liked to yell a lot, but he was determined to raise me well.” Victor smiles at the memory, temporarily transported back in time.

Yuuri doesn’t press.

Once upon a time, Yuuri’s family had run a hot springs inn in his sleepy hometown along the southwestern coast of Japan. It had been his family’s business for generations, but the ryokan had been completely destroyed when the earthquakes first started. His father and sister did not survive the initial wave, trapped under rubble. All Yuuri remembers are his glasses streaked with red and dirt, his mother’s insistent pulling at his elbow, and a cold hand in his that had grown colder with each passing moment. He’d come to hours later, the sharp scent of ethanol filling his nose as a stranger wiped the blood from his brow with a threadbare towel and pressed an opened can of beans into his hands. Yuuri would become well-acquainted with the taste of gelatinous room-temperature beans and the tang of tinned sardines over the next few weeks, he and his mother riding out the subsequent waves of earthquakes and aftershocks in makeshift emergency shelters with the few surviving townspeople.

When help finally came, his mother had used the meager savings they’d been able to recover to send Yuuri across the ocean by boat. The memory of that day is seared into Yuuri’s mind: the gulls, usually so noisy, were silent; the sea was eerily calm.

“Any place will be better than here,” she smiled through tears as she held his hands, so warm and alive, so different from the last hands he’d grasped.

“But what about you? Please, mother, come with me,” Yuuri cried in disbelief.

“I can’t leave your father and sister. There’s nothing left here, but if you go, you’ll still have a chance.”

“How do you know that?” Yuuri pleaded, hating the desperation coloring his voice. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. When he left, it should have been a different kind of adventure, three sets of arms and a pair of tiny paws sending him off. “It could be the same elsewhere, or worse!”

“Yuuri, my sweet baby boy,” his mother soothed as she pulled him in close, “Call it a hunch. Your mother’s intuition. God knows I would keep you here by my side, but I know there’s more out there waiting for you. You’ll see.”

 

*:･ﾟ✶✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

Yuuri doesn’t like open water.

It’s winter when Yuuri meets Victor by a lake. Tired and parched, he only wanders over to refill his canteen and beat the dirt from his coat and boots. Perched atop a piece of driftwood, Yuuri blows into his hands before rubbing them together, then pulls at the laces of his shoes. His right sole is beginning to crack—he’ll have to look for a replacement pair, soon. He’s about to haul his pack up and continue on his way when his sight catches on a patch of light near the center of the lake.

Yuuri fears he is hallucinating at first—what person would be so crazy as to openly bathe in the lake in these freezing temperatures? But the man is no mirage, and soon his body is a blur, screaming in a language Yuuri doesn’t understand, frantically hurtling toward the shore—toward _Yuuri_. Within a breath, Yuuri’s sight is full of wispy clouds streaking across the gray sky, his back meeting the cold, hard ground. Striking blue eyes, the brightest color Yuuri has seen in years, glare down at him from above.

“I thought you were a thief!” the stranger laughs moments later as he brushes his bangs from his face. If Yuuri thought the stranger’s eyes were bright, they are dimmed by the liveliness of his smile. He is also completely naked, not seeming to care in the slightest that Yuuri is sitting there fully clothed next to him. He tries not to look, to spare the stranger some privacy, but it is hard for Yuuri to tear his eyes away. He’s never seen anyone more beautiful before. Gleaming silver hair cut short, blue eyes that glitter like the ring of ice shards that circle the lake coast, skin so pale that Yuuri wonders if it ever saw sunlight, and long, lean limbs. In comparison, Yuuri feels absolutely drab.

“Say, what’s your name?” The stranger must have noticed Yuuri’s moment of apprehension, because he smiles, leaning his head against his bare bent knees. They’re flushed at the caps, as are the fingertips that cross over them. “It’s only me here. I’m Victor.”

Yuuri pulls the blanket from atop his pack and tosses it over the other man. Victor blinks. They’ll both benefit this way—Yuuri will stop feeling like such a creep for staring, and the cover should alleviate some of the chill setting into the other’s body. “Yuuri,” he replies.

Victor’s face goes still for a beat. But then he recovers, that warm smile returning. “It’s very nice to meet you, Yuuri,” he says as he pulls the blanket about his shoulders.

It’s different from how he’s used to hearing his name.

It’s not bad.

 

*:･ﾟ✶✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

There is danger in traveling alone, but there is also danger in trusting another person. In foraging enough food and water, finding shelter that could accommodate two, navigating the uncharted waters of another’s burdens and emotions. Yuuri naturally feels at ease by himself and had lived singularly for years, but solitude and loneliness are very different beasts. One is sought out as its own companion, while the other slowly eats away at one’s self, taking and taking and leaving only scant threads of sanity. Yuuri hadn’t realized how alone he had felt until Victor quite literally tumbles into his life.

But despite the danger, it feels _good_ , to not be alone.

 

*:･ﾟ✶✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

The first few weeks are an adjustment. Yuuri had spent so much time alone that it is hard to relearn how to live with someone else. Even more bizarre, neither of them had explicitly talked about traveling together—it had just happened. They had fallen into place, and Yuuri is suspicious of the ease at which he’d adapted to his new companion.

It’s not that he craves human interaction. But somehow, Victor is incredibly intuitive at reading his moods. Although Victor is an early riser, he allows Yuuri to sleep in whenever Yuuri’s had a bad night. A shameful number of times, Yuuri has awoken from his nightly terrors to Victor’s hand resting lightly upon his wrist, even though their cots are more than an arm’s length apart. Victor never mentions it afterward, but greets him with a smile and a hot mug of instant coffee. It makes Yuuri want to be able to support his companion in the same way, but he doesn’t know how.

Since there’s nothing he can do, Yuuri listens instead.

Victor speaks with an accent. It’s not that heavy, but it will show itself when Victor is tired, or when he searches for the right word in English. Yuuri finds himself grateful daily for the English lessons he’d taken in high school. He’s mostly fluent, having taken extra courses online to prepare him for college and practising with his mother’s best friend, who had traveled the world during her career as a prima ballerina. But he’s admittedly rusty after months of traveling by himself, with only his own damaged psyche for company. They fumble through jilted conversations, relinquishing into uncomfortable silence when the frustration becomes too much. Little by little, the words and phrases return, and the silences stretch closer until it’s no longer silence but companionable quiet.

Victor doesn’t talk much about his family, but he mentions his grandfather the most. Yuuri wonders if he’d been orphaned, or if he had a bad relationship with his parents, but never works up the courage to ask. Asking means he would have to divulge his own history, and he’s not sure he’s ready to reopen those wounds. He’s not sure he’ll ever be ready. They are tightly bound by grief and resentment, festering underneath the stitches he’s clumsily mended by himself.

Yuuri learns that Victor is a Russian from Russia, which in retrospect makes their first meeting make stupid sense. Of course Victor would be unfazed by the cold: he’s lived in it his entire life. How he found himself in the middle-of-nowhere America, Victor doesn’t say. There are hundreds of explanations Yuuri spins in his meandering thoughts, possibilities eliminated and regenerated.

He still does not ask.

Victor is also incredibly smart. He’s like a walking encyclopedia at times, rattling off random facts about various plant life they encounter or the weather cycles they battle while awake. He’s also a voracious reader. Yuuri doesn’t dislike reading, but he always preferred exploring life through the limits of his body rather than the confines of his mind. But he doesn’t complain as he follows Victor into an abandoned and dilapidated public library. Together they carefully wade through the wreckage of overturned stacks, Victor stopping every few feet to dust off heavy tomes. He mouths their titles silently as he picks them up and passes through the walkable trails, keeping a few tucked into the crook of his elbow. The books he takes come in a variety of languages, and Victor spends their downtime consuming them, lounging beside Yuuri and occasionally reading aloud passages he finds particularly intriguing or infuriating. Victor never keeps the books once he’s finished, instead discarding them in random places safe from the elements after jotting a quick note and signing on the inside of the book’s cover.

“For the next person who finds it,” Victor says with a wink, “Like one of those, what do you call them? When you write to someone in an exchange?”

“Pen pal?” Yuuri supplies.

“Yes! Like a pen pal.” His mouth is a heart-shaped smile, something Yuuri has learned only emerges when Victor is especially excited or delighted. He closes the book in his hands and sets it back onto the ledge, his fingertips lingering over the faded gold leaf embossed onto the worn canvas cover. “Even though I’ll never get a reply,” he finishes, so softly it almost misses Yuuri’s ears.

Other fragments pile on: Victor is slow to anger yet quick to forgive. He’s rarely picky when it comes to food and graciously eats even Yuuri’s pitiful, burnt attempts at cooking. Victor gets cranky when he’s gone too long without a proper shower, but he’ll always insist upon Yuuri going before him. He takes his coffee black but his tea sweetened with jam (when they can find it). The first time Yuuri had seen him do it, his mouth had dropped open, aghast, his face scrunched in poorly-disguised disgust. Sweetened tea is a concept that, having grown up on houjicha and ceremonial matcha, Yuuri views as practically _philistine_. Victor, in his easy manner, had merely grinned and nonchalantly plopped another large scoop into his cup.

Victor is also a card shark. No matter what they play, Yuuri can never seem to win. The deck Victor uses is well-worn, the paper supple and images faded from regular use. It had taken some time for Yuuri to learn the games. “Where’s the rest of them?” Yuuri had asked as he’d shuffled the cards the first time.

“The rest?”

“Of the cards. There aren’t any twos, threes, fours, or fives,” Yuuri replied, puzzled, turning the cards over to show Victor. Victor had laughed, low and warm.

“Oh! It’s a Russian deck. We don’t play with those numbers.”

So Victor teaches him, and Yuuri adds it to the collection that’s fast becoming his own personal encyclopedia of one Victor Nikiforov. Soon, he’ll have pages upon pages of mental notes dissecting the man, half-written chapters that he skips around, filling in the information as it’s gathered.

The unsurprising and simple truth, more prevalent than any other trait and best among the many observations and deductions that Yuuri discovers, is that Victor is _kind_.

 

*:･ﾟ✶✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

At times when they both find it hard to sleep, Yuuri and Victor pass the bewitching hours of night together lying on the ground and staring into the speckled canopy above them, so deep a blue that it’s almost black. The sky is clear and dark amongst the decay and dust, reminding him of life’s origins. That to dust all life shall eventually return, and that very dust will spin and compress, bursting into a star, and life will repeat over and over and over. It’s thoughts like these that put his mind to ease.

“This is all an afterimage,” Victor says, his breath ghosting in the chill of the night air. “What we’re seeing doesn’t exist anymore, or at least not in the way we’re seeing it now. Some of these stars are already long gone.”

Yuuri pulls his scarf up higher over his face. Long sprigs of withered grass tickle against the back of his neck and ears. “Do you think it’s any different out there?”

There’s movement out of the corner of his sight. “Who knows. The distance between stars is so vast, the universe still expanding, that it probably still looks the same. At least from where the ships are now. Even with the warp drives, they probably haven’t made it out that far, yet.”

It’s a little comforting to think. The _Aria_ , _Terra Incognita_ , and _Anastassis_ departed years ago, their occupants traveling on one-way tickets into interstellar space. By virtue of time dilation, they will live thousands of years longer than anyone left on earth. But in this way, at least, they’re still connected: still surrounded by the same familiar skies.

Yuuri nearly nods off, cocooned within the amicable silence that follows, the tickling of grass the only thing keeping him awake. Yuuri’s lost track of how many times he’s been lulled to sleep by Victor’s dulcet voice, content to drift into unconsciousness. He’s so close, so ready to hand himself over, but a bright streak glints off his glasses, startling him back to awareness.

Victor darts upward into a sitting position, pointing wildly at a dark spot along the edge of the Milky Way. “Yuuri! Did you see that?”

Yuuri nods, but he knows better than to wish anymore.

_Go and catch a falling star._

With his otherworldly beauty, eyes reflecting the stars, and hair the color of moonlight, Victor would look entirely normal with a ball of glowing space-rock clasped within his palms.

Victor reaches over and places his hand atop Yuuri’s, wordless. There are bits of grass and dried-out flowers sticking in Victor’s hair. The temperature must be below freezing, but there’s a burning in Yuuri’s chest, so warm that it spreads down to his belly and toes. “Victor,” he says, and Victor turns, and before he loses his nerve, Yuuri bends into him, pressing his mouth against Victor’s.

But all he meets is a body that is unmoving and unyielding, and Yuuri retreats, coiling into himself.

Stupid, so stupid.

“I’m sorry,” he blurts out to correct his mistake, “I’m sorry, I thought–” But he doesn’t get to finish before cold fingers hold his face and lips are upon his again, this time pressing urgently, rough but pliant and so, so warm. Tiny galaxies burst to life within Yuuri’s stomach, spinning and creating gravity, pulling Victor ever closer.

When they break for air, Yuuri feels dazed, like his entire world keeps shifting beneath him—like little earthquakes, but nothing like the ones that’d torn everything asunder years ago. “You keep surprising me, _solnyshko_ ,” Victor smiles, kissing a map of constellations across his face. And then he laughs, full of light and life, and Yuuri laughs too, because even though the world is ending, he is happy.

_Tell me where all the past years are._

Is the life his mother had envisioned when she’d sent him off and stayed to die? Yuuri thinks she would have liked Victor. No, he knows she would have. She would have adored him and doted on him. Home has never felt so far away. Yuuri clutches the pocket covering his heart tight and holds in his tears.

Later, he presses against Victor desperately, as though he could fuse himself to the other. Their first time is hurried and clumsy, both still unacquainted with how to give the other pleasure but more than willing to guide. Yuuri takes breaths from Victor’s mouth, slides against him until he falls apart in tremors and shudders, stills in the silence that follows.

If all that surrounds them is afterimages, glimpses into a distant past that persists beyond death, then Yuuri wants to stop time and live in this moment, forever. But the thing about time is that it is constant—flowing in only one direction, ever onwards. Yuuri hadn’t made a wish earlier, but now…

_Ride ten thousand days and nights, till age snow white hairs on thee._

“Stay close to me?” he whispers against Victor’s lips, the words nearly overshadowed by the steady one-two thudding in his ears.

Victor encircles him within his arms and places a kiss to his forehead. “Always.”

For the first time in years, Yuuri dreams.

He wakes in the morning pillowed against a plane of firm muscles, Victor’s hair a crown of dazzling starlight, anointed by the early reaches of dawn. Their second time is slower, every roll of hips an exploration, sighing into kisses and drawing moans from places previously unknown to Yuuri. He grips at the faint dusting of freckles that cascade like a mantle across Victor’s shoulders and digs a heel into the small of Victor’s back, urging for _more_ , always more. Licks wetly at the shell of Victor’s ear and bites at his collarbone. Bends his body so he can feel the drag of Victor’s within him deeper. Yuuri opens his mouth against Victor’s, drags his tongue across the roof of Victor’s mouth and feels Victor quiver down his spine, tugs on Victor’s bottom lip with his teeth until the other man strokes him firmly in retaliation.

Through it all, Victor keeps his eyes open and locked onto Yuuri’s, every movement attuned to every tiny reaction, and Yuuri’s never felt more exposed in his life. Yet he opens himself up further still, would empty his lungs of air and crack his bones open if it meant his molecules could bond more permanently with Victor’s.

“Yuuri,” Victor breathes, and it sounds like a prayer.

Like a wish.

Yuuri stares into the oceans in Victor’s eyes, plunges into their depths and allows the waves to crash over him, until he submerges.

 

*:･ﾟ✶✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

Victor happens upon the cellar by chance. After much cautious inspection, they’d deemed the old farmhouse safely abandoned, and blessedly well-stocked. While Yuuri raided the kitchen for unspoiled food and supplies to cook with, Victor investigated the rest of the house for better equipment and valuables. If one didn’t have a desired skill for bartering, at least they could stockpile things that might be worth something for trade.

“Think it’s still good?” Yuuri asks as he pokes the bottle in Victor’s grasp, disturbing the liquid inside.

“Doesn’t look cloudy,” Victor replies, holding it up to the light. He sets it back down on the counter and starts working on the cap.

Yuuri rolls his eyes. Typical.

“That’s definitely homemade,” Victor states with a loud exhale after taking a swig directly from the bottle.

Yuuri swats his hands away and sets a glass down next to him. “At least be civilized about your debauchery.”

Victor smirks and slowly raises the bottle to his lips yet again. He wiggles his eyebrows. Blows a kiss. Yuuri ignores him.

The scent of the alcohol, even from across the counter, is strong. Yuuri’s reality flickers: a cold hand, the astringent smell scorching his lungs.

He wrinkles his nose. “Find anything else down there?”

“There’s some wine and whiskey. I think I spotted some cognac, but I’d have to smell it to be sure. Some cured meat, too.”

Scratching at his chin, Yuuri mentally assesses their collective finds. “I saw a coop out back, and the chickens were still alive, so there’s probably some eggs. There’s a well, too. I found some tinned veggies in the cupboards, so with that and the meat, we should be able to cull together a proper meal.”

Victor swoops in, a peck against Yuuri’s unexpecting lips. “Mm, _très romantique_ ,” he hums. “I’ll go bring up the stuff.”

Yuuri stares after his back, his mind a wonderful stupor.

Evening falls. They cook dinner and drink until thoughts become fuzzy. They dance by the firelight to old tunes on a staticky crank-style radio. They howl at the brightness of the moon and collapse together, incapacitated by laughter.

And Yuuri is so in love.

 

*:･ﾟ✶✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

“I once was a dancer,” Victor says one day out of the blue. They are traveling south in search of more temperate pastures; by Yuuri’s count, it’s already May, but the weather hasn’t once shown an effort at warming. “I’d been with the Bolshoi for some years, but I’d just accepted a principal position at the New York City Ballet. That’s why I’m here.” Victor unwinds the scarf from about his shoulders and does a little pirouette in the middle of the singed field, trailing the fabric after him. “My grandfather gave me this scarf on the day I left. It was his favorite.”

It’s not surprising at all, which in itself is a surprise. Victor is graceful in this movements, light on his feet even on the most precarious terrains. It suits him.

“Why would you want to leave?”

Victor shrugs, rearranging the scarf back around his shoulders. “Needed a change. I was in a renowned company, but I felt stunted, in a way. Like I had reached the end of the line with nowhere else left to go. I thought if I started over, I might find new meaning. My instructor encouraged me; she said no matter the number of times, with enough determination, anyone could be reborn. I guess the world had different plans.”

“I would have liked to seen you on the stage,” Yuuri says. He has no doubt that Victor would be mesmerizing, captivating all eyes, demanding they not look away.

“I could give you a private performance,” Victor insists more than suggests. They’ve been together for more than half a year, but the intimacy still feels new. Yuuri knows his ears must be bright red by how hot they feel and pointedly ignores this fact, as well as the playful words.

“I was on the plane over when it happened,” Victor continues, pensive. “The pilot had to do an emergency landing in the water without any help from his instruments—I’ll never forget that turbulence. All of the overhead bins popped open, it was just raining luggage. I really thought we all were going to die.

“No one came to our rescue. Thankfully, we landed during a lull between shocks and were close enough to shore to ride the waves in. I decided then that if I were to get through that moment, I’d try my damnedest to live as long as I could, no matter how hard it got.”

They fall into silence, Yuuri’s thoughts tumbling and spiralling with each successive footfall.

This is the moment Yuuri has dreaded; it was bound to come up one day. He needs to say something, or the moment will be lost, and that wouldn’t be fair to Victor. Victor is always so giving of himself, and Yuuri greedily takes every morsel he offers but seldom gives any of himself in return. It’s not that he doesn’t want to share; he _wants_ Victor to know him. It’s that if he were to break off the tiniest piece and give it away, he’s afraid the rest of him would crumble.

Resigned, Yuuri takes a deep breath and looks away, continuing onward. “My mother sent me away.” He lets the words hang in the air before he chances a look back, finding Victor stricken.

“It’s not what you think,” Yuuri continues as he averts his gaze again, “She thought I’d have a better chance out here. My hometown was destroyed—nothing was left after the earthquakes. Only a quarter of the townspeople survived, and without resources, it was likely any survivors would follow soon after. So she took the small savings we had left and smuggled me away on the first boat to arrive. And this is where I ended up.”

“Oh Yuuri, I’m so sorry.” Yuuri hears Victor speak, but it’s like the sounds are filtered and garbled. His legs continue to move, but Yuuri abruptly feels like he’s fading away.

His fingers tighten over the straps of his rucksack. “Don’t be, she was right to,” he says, and it sounds mechanical even to him. “Both of us wouldn’t have been able to fend for both ourselves and the other without any aid coming in. We waited for weeks, scrounging on what little we could find. And when the first ship came, one that had traveled south along the coast searching for survivors, she sent me off.” Yuuri laughs a little, a bewildered expression blooming across Victor’s face. “I was supposed to come study in America, anyway. I just got here a bit differently than I had expected.”

He looks away, staring at everything and nothing at once, strangely ashamed to show his face to his companion. It’s not as though he left by choice. “She wasn’t the only one who stayed. Who knows, maybe she’s still out there, or maybe someone finally convinced her to leave.” They’re thin words of hope, unravelling quickly at his feet, but Yuuri clutches at them, or else he will simply fall apart.

Strong arms wrap around his middle and pull him close. Victor murmurs sweet reassurances into his ear, English sliding into Russian, the meaning lost yet comforting. Yuuri yields, cheek pressed against Victor’s chest, the heartbeat beneath loud and steady. His own heart feels heavy, crashing through ribs and organs, plummeting down to burn at the core of the earth. For a moment, he just wishes; for what, he’s not certain.

There are so many things in this life that he would change, but not this.

Never this.

The tears are an inevitability, thick rivulets streaming hot down his face and soaking into the scratchy wool of Victor’s sweater. It’s the first time he allows himself to cry for the past and for the future that could have been, but never will.

He vows it will be the only time.

 

*:･ﾟ✶✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

It’s a rare rest day. The weather had been unfavorable the past few days, too unpredictable to make any significant headway into the next town. After setting up camp, Victor takes a moment to shave off his growing stubble while Yuuri empties their packs and sorts out the items, assessing what to keep and what weight they can discard.

“Where’d you find these?” Yuuri asks, turning the pack of cards around in his hands. The paper is crisp and slick, the box pristine, as though it had only recently been unwrapped. He pulls the cards out, sifting through them. It’s a standard 52-card deck.

“Traded for them,” Victor says as he emerges from their tent, scrubbing at his face with a dampened towel.

Yuuri looks up sharply. “Traded?”

Victor frowns. “Yes,” he begins slowly, “in the last town. While you were searching for new clothes, I met someone who had all kinds of things. Finally found a use for those old cigarettes.”

The anger bubbles up instantaneously, uncontrollably. Yuuri _knows_ it’s irrational and that he’s probably (more than probably) being ridiculous.

He can’t stop himself.

“Victor! You shouldn’t– you know– I thought we _agreed_ –” God, he’s babbling. He should just _stop_. Shut up, _shut up!_

“She was just an old _babuska_!” Victor chuckles, even as Yuuri thumps him soundly on the chest. “I don’t think she could’ve harmed me if she wanted to, she looked so brittle. She could barely move.”

“That’s not the point!” Yuuri argues, “What if she wasn’t alone? What if she had a _gun_? Anything could’ve–”

Victor raises his palms in a placating fashion, but he doesn’t try to step back or push Yuuri away. “I know, I’m sorry, love. I just thought it would be nice. I’m sorry to have scared you.”

“Don’t you _ever_ –” Yuuri yells, still consumed and hating it. He never used to be this volatile. He can’t remember an instance where he allowed his emotions to get the better of him like this. Even after he’d left his home, he’d shut away everything in his heart. Victor is a key that has unlocked it, allowing every messy and fragile emotion to spill out. “Don’t do anything that could take you from me,” he finishes quietly.

Victor holds Yuuri’s wrists gently in his hands. “I’m sorry,” he says again, brushing a kiss to Yuuri’s knuckles. “I just wanted to surprise you. I won’t do it again. Forgive me?”

“You’re lucky I love you,” Yuuri says, not yet ready to surrender. Victor is all Yuuri has left in this world. If something were to happen to him, Yuuri isn’t sure he could survive another loss. He could deal with a breakup. But a premature parting… His heart is far too weak, far too breakable. Like glass, it would shatter, the shards ricocheting back to cut him open and bleed him dry. He would certainly die from heartbreak.

But Victor smiles brightly, his mouth shaped into a little heart, voicing all the things Yuuri can’t. His expression is impossibly soft. “Yes, I am.”

They play with the new deck that night. The cards are slick and smell faintly of tobacco. They play games for hours, breaking in the cards, laughing when they slip out of their hands or fall out of a shuffle.

Victor, of course, still wins.

 

*:･ﾟ✶✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

“Why didn’t you leave?” Victor asks one day.

Yuuri shrugs. “I figured if I couldn’t make it here, the chances of making it out there would probably be worse.” Victor is silent. “And you?”

Surely Victor could have afforded it. It’s true that artists weren’t typically paid a lot, but Yuuri has seen the gold bracelet around Victor’s wrist. It’s heavy and antique—more than enough to have bartered a ticket.

“I just thought it would be too sad,” Victor says after a moment. “You know, to lose a mother twice. This place is all we can ever expect to have. Even though it’s like this,” he gestures around, “I couldn’t bear to leave it.”

It’s a little too much, all at once. Yuuri doesn’t really know how to respond to that. So instead he just grips Victor’s hand tighter and ignores the trembling of his own. “I’m glad you stayed.”

 

*:･ﾟ✶✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

The dog is old, probably closer to ten than five. White hairs sprinkle her dark brown coat, and her eyes bear the beginnings of cataracts. A threadbare lavender collar loops around her neck, but any tags to identify her have since fallen off. But Victor is instantly enamored, throwing his arms around the dog’s slender frame and running his hands up and down the visible ridges of her back.

“She looks like my old dog, Makkachin.” The dog barks in delight, tail wagging rapidly from side to side. Victor croons at her softly in Russian, rubbing at her floppy ears and laughing when she lunges forward to knock him over and lick at his face.

She follows them for three kilometers before Victor finally breaks and offers her the remnants of his smoked fish. “ _Moya milaya devochka, moya horoshaya_. What do you say, girl? Want to come with us?” The dog whines softly, pressing her muzzle into Victor’s knees.

Yuuri bites his tongue. Another mouth to feed is a liability. There’s no telling if the dog is sick or carrying disease. But a piece of him, bigger than he’ll admit, yearns for the canine companionship he once had.

“She’s your responsibility,” Yuuri grumbles as he pulls his face mask back over his nose. It’s a lie—he knows he’ll care for her just as much, and do it willingly.

At his words, Victor is like Christmas morning personified. He releases the dog from his hold to jump at Yuuri, assaulting him in a bear hug. “You mean it?” he exclaims, pressing his slobber-wet cheek to Yuuri’s.

Victor does not name the dog. Neither does Yuuri. But Victor sometimes will sing to her at night beside the fire, and will allow her head to rest in his lap as she dozes.

Yuuri sneaks her his scraps from dinner and ties a bandana around her neck.

 

*:･ﾟ✶✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

“Don’t be mad at me,” Victor starts one day, which instantly sets Yuuri on edge.

“That depends,” he says warily, “on whether you’re about to give me a reason to be mad.”

Victor’s _nervous_ , his gaze skirting around Yuuri’s form but never quite meeting his eyes, which is such a rare occurrence that lead builds within his stomach and the bitter taste of bile creeps up his throat. They’ve been together long enough that Yuuri knows all his tells, has collected all the little details of his eating and sleeping habits, which smiles are true or polite or masking anger, how he’ll always choose Yuuri’s comfort over his own desires, how to turn him into a panting and pleading mess or goad him into pushing Yuuri down and having his way with him.

Is this it, then? Has Victor finally tired of him and their unwelcomed third companion in the form of all his emotional baggage, finally decided to drop Yuuri and venture off on his own? Should he just spare Victor the trouble with a _let’s end this_?

“Do you remember that time when I got the cards? I also got something else.”

Oh. That’s…not what he’s expecting, at all. Although it makes sense. Yuuri had nearly flown off the rails after learning that Victor had interacted alone with a stranger, exposing himself to all sorts of danger. No wonder he feels the needs to hedge around the incident again. Yuuri nods hesitantly, not really sure where Victor’s going with this.

Victor takes Yuuri’s hand, his thumb gently stroking over the back of it. “I know we haven’t really talked about it, but–” He reaches into his pocket and keeps whatever it is he removed from it closed tightly within his fist. “Close your eyes.”

Yuuri instantly obliges. Something hard nudges against one of his fingers, dragging upward with a bit of pressure. “There,” Victor says softly. There’s a curious satisfaction in his voice.

“Can I open my eyes now?”

“Of course, _zolotse_.”

His eyes fall to his hand. Around his right ring finger sits a thin circle of gold.

He’s not sure what kind of face he’s making, because seconds later Victor is babbling, grabbing his hand and lightly tugging at the band. “I’m sorry, we should have talked about it first, if you don’t want–”

But Yuuri cuts him off before he can misunderstand further. He closes his hand around Victor’s, partly to stop him from removing the ring, and partly just because he wants to hold Victor close to him. “I do. Want it,” he says, looking up at Victor’s face. His hair’s grown a bit long—his fringe has always easily covered his eyes, but now even more so. Yuuri wonders briefly what Victor might look like with long hair ( _stunning, untouchable_ , his mind supplies) before making a mental note to offer to trim it tonight. He reaches up and brushes the silver locks to the side. Surprisingly, Victor is not blushing, but his eyes are intense and blue, and it reminds him of their original meeting by the lake, so many months ago. “What about you?”

Victor wordlessly removes the matching pair from his pocket and offers it to Yuuri, palm extended. There’s a strip of skin around his wrist that’s just barely fainter than the rest, and Yuuri’s chest constricts at the realization.

Victor’s gold watch is gone. He’s mad at _himself_ for not noticing earlier.

Yuuri swallows the lump in his throat before he takes the ring and turns Victor’s outstretched hand over. He rubs at the spot it will soon occupy, sliding the ring up with little resistance. He smiles when it’s fully seated upon Victor’s finger. It looks good, like it was always meant to be there. Yuuri has never much given thought to belonging to someone—he’s always kept himself apart and at a distance from others, from a misguided effort to prove himself, to not have to be dependant on or hurt by anyone, to be able to survive in the wilderness of the After. But this—warmth and familiarity, the safety of home that he’s missed so much—he wants to get used to.

Yuuri links their hands together, the bands lightly clinking with contact. “I’m yours. And you are mine,” he says, feeling strangely bold.

Victor has never looked more alive than in this moment. Yuuri grafts the image upon his soul so that it becomes his and his alone, not ever to leave his memory.

That night, their fingers never untwine as they mouth vows into skin, Yuuri submitting to what has been building within him and allowing it to completely bloom and unfurl into the far reaches of his being, remaking him into a half of a whole and filling the recesses of his broken heart. He will never be able to undo this rearrangement: in so many ways, his life is no longer just his own.

Victor presses kisses along the insides of his thighs, sucks a pathway of dark marks that will linger for days, traverses his worship all the way down to the arch of Yuuri’s foot. Every caress feels new, feels somehow _different_ —it’s the polarity between searching and being found. When Victor takes him in his mouth, he watches Yuuri through long silver lashes, and Yuuri gasps like he’s drowning. Victor’s eyes burn like a blue flame, hotter surely than the phantom visages of stars above, and Yuuri is eager to burn underneath him, until there’s nothing left but the join of their bodies and the fire between them.

 

*:･ﾟ✶✧*:･ﾟ✧

 

The sky overhead is tinged with neon green and teal curtains, fluttering softly as Yuuri and Victor continue on their journey. Due to the catastrophic seismic activity of the End, the earth’s magnetic field had shifted, enabling this too-southern view of the aurora borealis. Yuuri looks up and smiles; he’s unsure whether he would’ve had the opportunity to see the northern lights like this in the story he lived before.

In life, there is always a silver lining to be found.

He’s not sure exactly where they’re headed, or what the future has in store for them. Yuuri still has his doubts about fate, but he wants to believe. So much that at times, it’s painful.

_“Call it a hunch.”_

All Yuuri knows with certainty now is love, and that he’s stronger for it. It’s his fuel when his body aches and his stomach grumbles, when his spirit depletes, and when the world appears unkind. Yuuri squeezes the hand holding his, feels his pulse quicken, and receives a smile meant only for him.

_“I know there’s more out there waiting for you. You’ll see.”_

It’s just him and Victor, the memories they carry within their hearts and a promise worn in gold upon their fingers, and now a scrawny, nameless dog, wandering a barren world that circles a dying sun. It’s not likely they’ll leave anything of value behind. They’ll be long gone before the sun explodes and swallows the planet whole in its first and final embrace.

But for the remaining years they have, they choose to persist, each step a thread in the tapestry of their lives. And when the time comes for their own Afters, perhaps those threads—shining, abundant, _everlasting_ —would one day cradle new stars and planets or guide comets on their paths and asteroids along their orbit. Woven into the fabric of the universe, their love would live on as more than just a memory for someone else to gaze upon from light-years away.

A force to change the cosmos.

**Author's Note:**

> Lines of poetry taken from "Song" by John Donne.
> 
> Kudos, comments, and shares give me life ♡
> 
> Yell about skating boys with me on [twitter](http://twitter.com/kaguneesan) and [tumblr](http://kanekuinke.tumblr.com) lol


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